Chris M
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Post by Chris M on Nov 21, 2019 0:49:27 GMT
On another forum that deals primarily with National Rail matters I (and others) have been making these same points since at least Lewisham. The response from the rail industry professionals there has been, with limited exception, a mix of "Too hard", "Can't" and "If passengers weren't so stupid as to self-detrain there wouldn't be any problems" (although not always that politely).
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Post by trt on Nov 21, 2019 11:01:59 GMT
On another forum that deals primarily with National Rail matters I (and others) have been making these same points since at least Lewisham. The response from the rail industry professionals there has been, with limited exception, a mix of "Too hard", "Can't" and "If passengers weren't so stupid as to self-detrain there wouldn't be any problems" (although not always that politely). From the passenger point of view, there appears to be an increasing distrust in the competence of those in a position of authority. I suppose that's synonymous with an increasing lack of respect for authority. The 'citizen movement' is not always appropriate! For all the modern communications systems we have now, they aren't worth a jot if there's only one person running the show at that location. One wonders what the response would be if there WERE total automation on the railways? Completely unstaffed vehicles. Remote operators unaware of the situation on the ground, running remote diagnostics and having to interpret sensor readings. |
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Post by alpinejohn on Nov 21, 2019 13:01:38 GMT
I too am disheartened by the apparent lack of common sense when it comes to events such as this.
I see some appear to think the only response required is to simply devise time limits before people are required to arrange safe disembarkation.
But that rather misses the fundamental nature of "unforseen incidents" - they are unforseen. The causes may well be unforseen - the risks may be unforseen - and the most sensible response may well be unknowable in advance. Remember just following a pre-set(stay put) script proved sadly a critical contributor to the loss of life at Grenfell. Railway operators surely cannot afford to ignore these repeated warnings - as this will happen again - and as someone else has pointed out - surely the industry does not want to delay properly addressing this problem until there is a fatality.
The whole mess becomes even more complicated by commercial pressures - and the resulting desire to avoid/minimise/or pass to others liability for the costs of any disruption. This basically means people on the ground pretty much have their hands tied, and most are now unwilling or unable to take sensible action for fear of disciplinary action.
Once again it seems some people are content to just grumble about "stupid irresponsible passenger behaviour" rather that understand that these are fellow human passengers, with human needs, and are often being transported in conditions which would be illegal for livestock. Unless or until you ensure everyone on every train has a seat and access to working toilets - the "stay put for your own safety advice" will always have limited time acceptance - especially if passengers are within sight of nearby roads or another way out.
In most of these self disembarkation events, I doubt it would be more than a few minutes before at least the relevant signal controller was aware of an issue with a service(s). Most worrying is the lack of action in cases where trains were stranded close to stations or at least close to local roads where like it or not passengers will be more inclined to decamp if there is no obvious sign of their journey resuming.
Obviously signallers must be the starting point in a communication/and response chain - especially in fully automated systems like the DLR. It really should be for the signallers to ensure that the problem is either swiftly resolved by the driver/attendant, if possible the train(s) authorised to move under caution to a nearby station to disembark passengers. That is really what was needed, but if not, they should have well rehearsed procedures in place to ensure personel are rapidly sent to site to oversee safe trackside evacuation.
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Chris M
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Post by Chris M on Nov 21, 2019 14:32:14 GMT
With the destaffing of stations and deskilling of staff there (on the national network at least), combined with the reduction in (safety-trained) on-train staff and grouping of other staff into larger units, there are far fewer people near any given point on the network than there used to be. This means that any evacuation which requires more trained staff than are onboard the train and not incapacitated (most that are not within say 2 minutes easy walk of a station platform or access point in the prevailing conditions) to ensure safety, takes a lot of time to organise. If it is in an area with multiple tracks and/or trains operated by multiple TOCs it gets more complicated still. All this means it can take a lot of time to get the relevant resources to site - often much longer than you have between knowing that the train cannot be fixed on site and them being needed, so the panning to evacuate people from a train needs to start before you know you need to evacuate passengers from a train - i.e. it needs to happen in parallel with attempts to fix the train. In many, probably most, incidents this means you will need to stand people down before they get to site - possibly turning them round en-route, but surely even 100 instances of that is better than a fatality? This is though not much more than just a rephrasing of what I said in July Yes, the railway needs to realise that passengers will self-detrain and that there are exactly two things they can do to prevent it: 1: Get the train moving again before people leave it 2: Detrain them in a controlled manner before they do it themselves How long you have to do either of these depends on many factors and varies from seconds (e.g. if the train (appears to be) on fire and the train is at a station) to many hours (e.g. there's a blizzard outside and there are no alternative transport options available nearby). There are things you can do to increase the time available before people self-detrain, such as giving them timely, truthful and detailed information about what is happening, why and how long you expect to be before either 1 or 2 happens and keeping the environment on the train as comfortable as possible, but on a hot day in an urban area with an apparently easy route to alternative transport options visible you probably have at absolute most about an hour no matter what you do. In all situations though you need to start planning to do (2) as soon as there is a chance if there is a chance that (1) will not happen (if not sooner). |
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Post by aslefshrugged on Nov 21, 2019 15:09:35 GMT
The key problems in this incident seems to be:-
1) the train lost power in an area controlled by Victoria signal centre but where the driver could only contact Wembley signals on the radio. In the end Wembley had to pass the driver's mobile phone number to Victoria so they give instructions.
2) the driver was given conflicting instructions from Victoria SC and London Underground's control centre in Swiss Cottage.
Too many cooks.
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35b
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Post by 35b on Nov 21, 2019 15:47:35 GMT
I too am disheartened by the apparent lack of common sense when it comes to events such as this. I see some appear to think the only response required is to simply devise time limits before people are required to arrange safe disembarkation. But that rather misses the fundamental nature of "unforseen incidents" - they are unforseen. The causes may well be unforseen - the risks may be unforseen - and the most sensible response may well be unknowable in advance. Remember just following a pre-set(stay put) script proved sadly a critical contributor to the loss of life at Grenfell. Railway operators surely cannot afford to ignore these repeated warnings - as this will happen again - and as someone else has pointed out - surely the industry does not want to delay properly addressing this problem until there is a fatality. The whole mess becomes even more complicated by commercial pressures - and the resulting desire to avoid/minimise/or pass to others liability for the costs of any disruption. This basically means people on the ground pretty much have their hands tied, and most are now unwilling or unable to take sensible action for fear of disciplinary action. Once again it seems some people are content to just grumble about "stupid irresponsible passenger behaviour" rather that understand that these are fellow human passengers, with human needs, and are often being transported in conditions which would be illegal for livestock. Unless or until you ensure everyone on every train has a seat and access to working toilets - the "stay put for your own safety advice" will always have limited time acceptance - especially if passengers are within sight of nearby roads or another way out. In most of these self disembarkation events, I doubt it would be more than a few minutes before at least the relevant signal controller was aware of an issue with a service(s). Most worrying is the lack of action in cases where trains were stranded close to stations or at least close to local roads where like it or not passengers will be more inclined to decamp if there is no obvious sign of their journey resuming. Obviously signallers must be the starting point in a communication/and response chain - especially in fully automated systems like the DLR. It really should be for the signallers to ensure that the problem is either swiftly resolved by the driver/attendant, if possible the train(s) authorised to move under caution to a nearby station to disembark passengers. That is really what was needed, but if not, they should have well rehearsed procedures in place to ensure personel are rapidly sent to site to oversee safe trackside evacuation. Which is why I believe that there should be mandatory standards for implementing an evacuation, which will apply unless a positive decision is made to defer. These situations are difficult, and made worse by the failings detailed in the RAIB digest. But part of the problem seems to be that because the occurrences are unforeseen, the fact of incidents needing evacuation is also not being foreseen, and therefore there is an absence of planning. In turn, that is making the results more serious as the staff involved are not adequately prepared and conditioned for the event. |
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